Document Details

Delta Narratives: Managing the Garden: Agriculture, Reclamation, and Restoration in the Sacramento -San Joaquin Delta

Philip Garone | August 5th, 2015


This paper examines land and water use in the Delta from before European contact in 1769 to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The focus lies, first, on the ecological transformation of the region during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century from a tidal wetland to an engineered, reclaimed agricultural landscape, as well as on some of the individuals most responsible for that transformation and, second, on more recent environmental conditions in the Delta, especially water quality issues, and on the restoration of wetlands around the Delta’s margins. This paper begins with the Delta’s geological origins, and then discusses how Native Americans used and modified the land, and accounts for the activities of Spanish, Mexican, and early Anglo explorers in the region, as well as the consequences of those activities for indigenous peoples. It then traces the various stages of Delta reclamation from the time of California statehood, beginning with Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act of 1850. It examines the challenges of levee building, which was carried out at first by hand largely by Chinese laborers, and later by mechanized equipment, most notably clamshell dredges. Once reclaimed, Delta mineral and peat soils yielded a wide variety of agricultural products, including potatoes, grains, asparagus, sugar beets, and orchard fruits, among others, which are discussed in some detail. This paper also examines the history of salmon fishing and canning in the Delta before turning more broadly to the twentieth-century federal and state water projects that have affected the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in different ways and that at various times have both improved and degraded water quality in the Delta. It concludes by coming full circle to late-twentieth century conservation efforts that have aimed to restore parts of the Delta and that have led to the creation of a variety of state, federal, and other protected lands, primarily along the Delta’s fringes, even while the heart of the Delta continues to grapple with seemingly intractable issues of water quality and water conveyance.

Keywords

agriculture, history, Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta